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EagleRider rents more Harleys than any other brand. This is our 2016 Street Glide.

Keep your New Year’s Resolution to ride more motorcycles with EagleRider’s easy rental service

A coast-to-coast company called EagleRider makes it easy and relatively cheap

January 11, 2017

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EagleRider co-founder Chris McIntyre sounds like a biker. Or maybe a professional wrestler. Read the following McIntyre quote with a Hulk Hogan voice:

“Brother, I started when I was 7 years old and jumped on a minibike and crashed straight into my neighbor’s fence,” he says. “Brother, I was hooked.”

Hooked, that is, on motorcycles. Who doesn’t have a similar story?

And while the guy might sound like a professional wrestler, he has excellent business sense, building a good idea into an international business over the last 25 years.

McIntyre graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison -– where he rode his Suzuki PE 185 Enduro to class through the snow -- then moved west to take a job at NCR financial systems.

“While I was two years into it, I meet a guy, Jeff Brown. We had both come to California. He rides, I ride. So as we’re talking, he’s like, ‘We both love riding. Let’s get our dream bikes, man, and just have some fun on the weekends, meet girls. So we both bought bikes, rode up Pacific Coast Highway. Had fun.”

Until the life-changing experience.

The Harley-Davidson Twin Cam 103

“We were in Big Sur, and some Europeans come up in a rental Mustang. They look at our bikes. They say, ‘Oh man, that’s so cool.’ The guys are looking at me and go, ‘Man, if Hertz would have rented us Harleys instead of Mustangs, we’d be on ‘em.”

And with that, an idea was born.

“Jeff did a paper on it. He was doing his MBA at Pepperdine. We just said, ‘(By golly), let’s do it.’ We took everything we had, took our passion, almost every penny we had, bought some bikes and did our first test rental in 1993.”

The rest is motorcycle rental history.

The Street Glide features Harley's Boom! Box 4.3 radio and standard 5.25-inch speakers

McIntyre, Brown and a guy from Germany named Peter Wurmer started the business out of Wurmer’s garage in San Pedro, California. The addition of Wurmer was pretty helpful. Germans in particular have a fascination with the Wild West; they grew up reading comic books starring a character named Lucky Luke, they believe the West is still populated by cowboys and they want to see it. They also think David Hasselhoff, another German hero, is still at the beach working as a lifeguard for Baywatch. And they love Las Vegas. Who knows why?

Much of EagleRiders’ business now comes from Germans and other Europeans.

And everyone wants to ride Harleys. Harley-Davidsons make up 75 percent of the EagleRider fleet of 4,000 motorcycles. There are also a lot of Indian motorcycles available, as well as BMW R1200GS and Triumph Tiger 1200 adventure bikes. In some locations, you can even rent a Polaris Slingshot.

There are all kinds of deals, too. You can join Club EagleRider and get 12 rental days a year for $29 per month, assuming you’re not renting on a blackout day, when demand is high. After the first free day, additional days are $39 each. You even get a free rental on your birthday.

If you were to rent, say, an Indian Chieftain from Monday to Wednesday, it would cost $298, at $149 per day. With Club EagleRider, if you had not yet used your rental day for that period, the first day would be free and the second would be $39, so a $39 total before tax. It would then be an additional $39 per day after that. So Club EagleRider sounds like a pretty good deal if you’re just a little bit flexible.

We went down to the EagleRider outlet by LAX to try one out. EagleRider offers shuttles from nearby hotels for rentals of three days or longer, as well as locked storage for your suitcase and free parking if you drive there. We rented a 2016 Harley Davidson Street Glide, one of the biggest bikes we’ve ever ridden. EagleRider rents jackets and gloves and will sell enough headbands and chaps to make you fit in like a regular at Sturgis.

The EagleRider staffer did a video walkaround of the bike to verify that that scratch was already there, which we then virtually signed via the video screen, and we were off. EagleRider offers a number of different kinds of insurance, too.

The Street Glide was like a solid gold Barcalounger –- so smooth, so comfortable. You might have thought that a big Harley engine like the Twin Cam 103 on our bike would vibrate a little. But while you could feel it at idle below 1,000 rpm, at anything above 1,500 revs, it was as smooth as any big twin on the market. Turning was easy, too, you just have to plan ahead a little. The suspension includes adjustable air shocks, which can be set up for one or two riders and/or some extra gear. For our ride, it was set to what felt like ultra-smooth. The only drawback to this particular bike was the size and weight. Parking it or trying to position it for a photo took some engineering and planning. But you could get used to it.

Or you could rent something smaller and lighter. Heck, you have 13 rental days a year if you count your free birthday rental. Harley Davidson lists the price of a new 2016 Harley Davidson Street Glide starting at $20,899, so a rental is a lot cheaper than owning, depending on how many days a year you ride.

EagleRider also has guided and self-guided tours of the best routes in each location, from Vancouver to Miami or around the world. And if you really like your rental bike, you can buy it, also through EagleRider. It’s a pretty good way to live out your biker fantasy, brother.